Latest news with #LiveAidat40:WhenRock'n'RollTookontheWorld
Glasgow Times
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
How to watch the Live Aid 1985 concert in full online
Taking place on Saturday, July 13, 1985, the two-venue benefit concert and music-based fundraising initiative raised funds for the relief of the 1983 to 1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure and raised millions. With the event marking its 40th birthday, you may be wondering if it is available to watch in full. Here is all to know. Top 10 British Albums How to watch the Live Aid 1985 concert in full online The full Live Aid concert from 1985 is not easy to watch in full, but can be found online. The Internet Archive website has the full 16-hour broadcast, with the full show also available on DVD. On YouTube, you can find various clips and full performances too. The Live Aid channel will be airing 10 hours of highlights in a live-streamed event at noon in the UK on Sunday, July 13. The BBC has also released a documentary series on BBC iPlayer marking the 40th anniversary titled Live Aid at 40: When Rock 'n' Roll Took on the World. It has behind-the-scenes stories and exclusive interviews include iconic figures such as Bob Geldof, Bono and Sting. Emma Hindley, BBC Commissioning Editor, said: "The series takes the audience on an irresistible and entertaining ride through the 40 years since the biggest live concert ever was shown on TV. "Featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes interviews with an array of stars of rock & pop, Live Aid at 40 revels in the music, unravels the politics and explores the legacy of Live Aid." BBC to air extended highlights of Live Aid concert For the first time since the 1985 concert, the BBC will also air extended highlights from the 16 hours of music. Live Aid: The Concert will give viewers a chance to relive more than six-and-a-half hours of extended highlights of the London and Philadelphia concerts. This week marks 40 years since Live Aid, the legendary 1985 concert that brought the world together to fight famine in Ethiopia. Simple Minds played in Philadelphia, introduced by Jack Nicholson, in front of nearly 2 billion TV viewers in over 150 countries.#LiveAid40 — Simple Minds (@simplemindscom) July 10, 2025 There will also be backstage footage, including interviews with iconic names such as Bono, Brian May, David Bowie, Roger Daltrey, Spandau Ballet and Sting. Recommended reading: Jonathan Rothery, Head of BBC Popular Music TV, said: 'This summer we're delighted to be giving viewers a chance to relive one of the biggest concerts in history for the first time on TV since it was originally broadcast on the BBC. "By providing more than six-and-a-half hours of footage that was captured on the day Live Aid took place, we want viewers to feel transported back to 1985, and to enjoy all those classic songs that we all still know and love to this day, as they were performed on that stage.' Live Aid: The Concert will be on BBC Two in two parts on Saturday, July 12, with part one from 6pm to 9.15pm and part two following from 9.25pm to 1.05am on Sunday.
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
TV review: Live Aid docuseries paints Geldof as the good guy
The 1985 Live Aid concert was a historic gesture of international solidarity by the music industry — a business not generally known for its generosity or humanity. But it is also the story of a group of Irishmen haunted, as Bono says, by the 'folk memory' of our own famine and a trauma passed down the generations. Bono makes his comment early in Live Aid at 40: When Rock'n'Roll Took on the World (BBC Two, Sunday), a fascinating three-part documentary about the original shows at Wembley and Philadelphia, the 1984 Band Aid single Do They Know It's Christmas? and Live Eight, the damp squib follow-up charity circus from 2005. The lead character is another Dubliner, Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof. He comes across well in this film — a flawed yet sincere campaigner outraged by BBC news footage of children starving to death in Ethiopia in 1984. A clumsier doc would lean into revisionism and accuse Live Aid and Geldof of a white saviour complex. Live Aid at 40 resists that temptation and gives Geldof his due as a passionate campaigner. There are criticisms, however. Journalist Kolton Lee points out that the Live Aid Wembley bill was all white, and that the many black artists in Britain at the time were given short shrift. Geldof's response comes from a place of arch-pragmatism. The goal, he says, was to raise money for those dying in Ethiopia. He needed big stars, and because of the way the business operated at that time, those stars were all white. Had there been a Stormzy at that time, he would have begged him to be involved. But there wasn't. The BBC also does well in giving a voice to Ethiopians. Many were upset by the line 'Do they know it's Christmas' from Band Aid. Ethiopia had been at the nexus of ancient Christianity — how insulting to suggest that Christmas was an alien concept, says Ethiopia's then aid minister Dawit Giorgis. 'Ethiopians are the oldest Christians in the world so that offended us.' There is some unexpected humour. Bono recalls visiting the White House to meet George W Bush — only to be mistaken for Cher's ex, Sonny Bono, long dead at the time. It is a rare chuckle in an often sobering series which ultimately stands as a warts-and-all celebration of Geldof and his remarkable achievement in transforming something as trivial as pop music into an instrument that saved millions of lives.
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Tom Dunne: Live Aid at 40... where were you when it was on?
I won't hear a bad world said. 40 years on, haters gotta hate, gripers gotta gripe and all that, the picking of holes is inevitable. It's what the internet does. It would cancel Mother Teresa if it got time. But Live Aid was a brilliant, brilliant thing. Anyone doubting this should watch the part in the BBC documentary series, Live Aid at 40: When Rock 'n' Roll Took on the World, where an Irish nurse tells a dad that his four-year-old daughter is passed saving. It is too late for this little one, she says as gently as she can. Amongst so many similarly stricken children it appears inevitable. But, unable to talk English, he touches the nurse's hand to his daughter's chest. It is still warm. The nurse tries again. The camera then shows that girl, Birhan Woldu, now 44, sitting with her dad. It is very powerful. Just one of the thousands of lives saved by a 7-inch single. Forty years is a long time. You can't help but look at where you were then and what you did. The bands were beautiful, and young, but so were we. And Bob Geldof created something that we drew us in, mesmerised us and made us all feel we were doing something not just worthwhile, but magical. As a result, the memories of 'where you were' tend to be seared into people's minds. I asked on X – yes it still has some uses – and the responses were warm and loving; 'In a beach cottage with my first girlfriend/love of my life,' 'My granny's house in Monaghan' or 'the front room of my house in Derry with 10 E-180 video cassettes.' A friend told me of watching it with her first boyfriend's parents, an awkward 'meet the in-laws' moment expanded into a 12-hour TV marathon. Another watched it in a soccer hall in Belfast in which the Troubles, then rampant, were given a day off as Catholics and Protestants sat down together. For my part the night before, my band, then only a few months old, was playing a '14 Band Bash' at the Ivy Rooms in Dublin. We and others like The Slowest Clock, The Garden Hasn't Changed Much and Winter's Reign could only really get a crowd by playing together. We adjourned to a house party in Phibsboro, and it was there that the next day I saw the opening notes of Live Aid. That was the moment when the sheer enormity of it hit us. 'Oh Bob,' I thought, 'what have you done?' and rushed home to watch the rest. Bob Geldof on the BBC documentary, Live Aid at 40. The rest of that day is a blur. My parents made tea but there was no switching the channel (to one of the other three.) Friends called in and out. We had seen nothing like it. Five a side was cancelled. More tea was made. I watched with a mixture of nervousness and awe. Nervousness to see two Irishmen at the centre of it, and not just at its centre but driving it, owning it, inspiring it. And awe at the sheer enormity of it. McCartney seemed almost like a forgotten man at its end. The Beatles in 1985 seemed further away in history than they do now. His mic briefly not working only confirm ed that. The Beatles had just been so long ago. Costello singing their All You Need Is Love anthem was more of the moment. This was more about were The Beatles had been going than the ex-Beatle now was. All you needed was love and a driven organiser with vision and a steely nerve. This was the Summer of Love 1980s' style, doing something practical and saving people's lives. The power of music, the 'language of rock'n'roll', as Bob put it, had never been more evident. The 'cocky' Irishman that had floored me at Dalymount in 1977 was simply unstoppable. An Irishman that could accost Thatcher and convince her to waive the VAT on the single's sales or tell an Ethiopian dictator to 'F**k off.' An Irishman doing all that. On a musical note, it should not be forgotten that this was a partisan music era. If you liked The Rats you hated Spandau Ballet. If you liked Adam Ant you hated Nik Kershaw. No one liked the Style Council-era Paul Weller. If you liked Status Quo, help was available. Those of us who music knew that If Bob could get those disparate acts onto the same stage he was capable of anything. I suspect he still is.
